Tag - occupational health

Book Review: The Politics of Cancer

The Politics of Cancer is his contribution to the debate over the future of the environmental health movement. In it he has pulled together a monumental amount of information on specific carcinogens, on the scientific background to cancer, and on the “scientific” and “non-scientific” opposition to regulation. He...

Adding Injury to Insult: Black Workers and Occupational Hazards

What can be done? Research aimed at identifying hazards of jobs employing large numbers of blacks is sorely needed, as are efforts to train black workers in the recognition and control of job hazards. Black health professionals and physicians need to be trained to identify occupational diseases, take work histories...

Industrial Genetic Screening

In an unequal set of economic relations as exist within American industry, scientists must work extremely hard to see that on matters of health all sides are considered equally. This means they will have to forge links with workers and progressive unions who are struggling over occupational health issues. They will...

Mass Psychogenic Illness

The label mass psychogenic directs scientists to look to workers' psyches for causes and solutions, meanwhile ignoring potential physical workplace hazards and stressful conditions. It allows scientists to translate their investigative inadequacies into "respectable" jargon and lets industry off the hook. Poor...

Brown Lung Blues

Brown lung, or byssinosis, is a chronic respiratory disease associated with inhaling cotton, flax, and soft hemp dusts. The initial symptoms are chest tightness, cough, sputum production and shortness of breath on the first day of every work week. Symptoms may disappear shortly after leaving work but recur each Monday...

MassCOSH: Organizing for Occupational Health

A collective bargaining agreement which recognizes the right of the union to represent and protect its members is of paramount importance. It gives the union the right to demand that management provide complete information concerning the materials to which workers are exposed and all other hazards of the workplace. It...

Occupational Health and Safety Resources

Some Worker-Oriented Projects Boston area: Occupational Health and Safety Project/ Urban Planning Aid. —this group provides free assistance to unions and organizers in trying to understand and correct health and safety problems. They have published many helpful fact sheets and pamphlets. Among the most useful of these...

Industrial Safety and Health in Puerto Rico

The caribbean island of Puerto Rico is one of the few colonies still existing in the world. The invasion of the island by USA military forces in 1898, during the U.S. war with Spain and Cuba, marked the beginning of this colonial relationship as well as one of the first imperialist adventures of the U.S. government.

XXX at Vinylex

The following article includes a critical discussion of a negative role played by representatives of the OCAW in organizing efforts at a small plastics factory in Tennessee. We wish to point out that the OCAW has been one of the more progressive U.S. unions, particularly in the area of occupational health. We hope the...